September 2025: One of the most distinctive things about Quaker worship is that it incorporates silence. Whether it is a full hour of silence, or part of a program, Quakers believe that our relationship to the spirit begins with leaving space. This month we’ll explore why that is, and what comes from it.
“There are imperial liturgies today. An example is something like the Nuremberg rallies in Nazi Germany on a massive scale. Lynchings of African-Americans functioned very much like a liturgy of empire and white supremacy. More recently, the White Supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, and the spectacle around the last Presidential election and the subsequent rallies, are all examples of this kind of building up into a frenzy against ‘wicked’ others that we see in liturgies of empire.”
“The new man worships a God at hand, where he dwells in his holy temple, and he knows him by his own word and from his dwelling place, and not by relation of others. And thus the holy men of God always knew him; for Abraham did not know him by what he had spoken to Noah […]; but he that believeth hath the witness within himself, and thereby sets to his seal that God is true.”
“The light within is a central guide for parents. I believe each child is born full of the light, in complete innocence and goodness, and our most important role as parents is to nurture that light. Sometimes it is obvious and our way is clear. Other times – many other times – it is not. Then our job is to be attentive, to listen with all our senses. Is it our eye that is clouded, or has something obscured the light in them? What can we do to help loosen what is covering it, so that our view of them and their view of themselves and the world is clear again?”
“Nothing, I believe, can really teach us the nature and meaning of inspiration but personal experience of it. That we may all have such experience if we will but attend to the Divine influences in our own hearts, is the cardinal doctrine of Quakerism.”
“For me, being a Quaker isn’t easy, by that I mean there are a lot of hard choices to be made, and you’re left on your own to get in touch with God, which is good. This being left alone means that I can come to terms with God, and at anytime I need. There is no minister there to tell me how and when to talk to God, or even to talk to him or her so that they can speak to God on my behalf. There is a downside to this though. Without anyone telling you how to do any of this, it seems rather hard to get in touch with God. Thus I have come to the conclusion that there is no ‘right’ way to speak with God, just do it the best you can, and God will understand.”
“The Seed, or Grace of God, is small in its first Appearance, even as the Morning Light; but as it is given Heed to, and obeyed, it will increase in Brightness, till it shine in the Soul, like the Sun in the Firmament at its Noon-day Height.”
“The Quaker understanding of marriage is consistent with both the wild idealism and grounded pragmatism of Quaker faith. It’s the simple, radical idea that marriage relationships are created by God, not by other people. Neither a church nor an officiant, a judge, or a legislator—no human being or organization—can perform a marriage; we can only witness that God has married people, and agree (or not) to help care for their marriage.”
“Sexuality, looked at dispassionately, is neither good nor evil – it is a fact of nature and a force of immeasurable power. But looking at it as Christians we have felt impelled to state without reservation that it is a glorious gift of God. Throughout the whole of living nature it makes possible an endless and fascinating variety of creatures, a lavishness, a beauty of form and colour surpassing all that could be imagined as necessary to survival.”
“All that dwell in the light, their habitation is in God, and they know a hiding place in the day of storm; and those who dwell in the light, are built upon the rock, and cannot be moved, for who are moved or shaken, goes from the light, and so goes from their strength, and from the power of God, and loses the peace and the enjoyment of the presence of God.”
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